Posts Tagged ‘Tea’

25.02.2010

Aloe Vera gel & juice: a favourite ingredient

Hello, dear, dear readers! If you’re seeing this sentence, that means you are still checking here for posts, and I thank you sincerely for that. I have been AWOL again, and I don’t even have a good excuse. I still think about and plan blog posts often, but have been having difficulty transforming those plans into actual, written entries.

In the past few weeks I’ve done a lot of reading, quite a bit of cooking, gone ice-skating twice, and drank a lot of tea. C & I spent Valentine’s Day in the Emergency room at the hospital (we are fine, just couldn’t get into a clinic!) which was interesting, but certainly not fun. We are not vegan (or even vegetarian) but we have been eating lots of vegan & vegetarian meals lately. Out of sheer laziness, we’ve also been eating out a few times a week. Since it has been raining and/or snowing all week here, I haven’t been buying as many groceries as I usually might. Consequently, we’ve just been using up the contents of our cupboards and fridge.

Various aloes: far left is a gel for topical use. The others are edible and delicious.

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04.02.2010

Fresh turmeric tea

Hello lovelies! Today is a wonderful, sunny day where I am. It’s still very cold and very… umm… February, but it is always so nice to see the sun! It does wonders for my mood. I am now reading The Great Gatsby for the first time, and actually finding it much more engrossing than I’d expected, despite the occasional deterioration of the narrative into sexist, racist, and classist comments. I am finding Fitzgerald’s sporadic lack of understanding for these issues surprising, since he is so obviously insightful at other times. Perhaps I’m blaming the words on the characters on Fitzgerald, which isn’t really fair…
Anyway, I guess one becomes bothered by these things most especially when one has just finished reading a book of cultural criticism by bell hooks, who certainly has no tolerance for the intolerance of others. It is still a good read. On to tea!

A few days ago we made a big pot of turmeric-ginger tea. I’ve made turmeric tea before, using powdered, dried turmeric, and even wrote about the tea and it’s health benefits here in this post. This time we used fresh turmeric and fresh ginger, and it was much better than using the dried powder. Using fresh turmeric also means that more of the potent anti-inflammatory properties of the root are preserved, making it even healthier. It’s not difficult to make, either, as long as you are able to find fresh turmeric. It looks much like fresh ginger root, except it has a smaller diameter and is bright orange (especially when cut open).
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21.12.2009

Happy Winter Solstice! (and a mystery)

That’s right, today is the shortest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere, as well as the first day of winter. I think that’s great news, because now we’ll be getting more and more daylight-time as the weeks go by, instead of less. The cold weather will still be here for awhile longer, of course, but for me the darkness of winter is more challenging than the cold, and every extra moment of daylight helps.

I read a bit about the winter solstice here on National Geographic.

Now for a mystery:

this is the front...
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19.12.2009

Goya: more bitter than sweet

Though it is a fruit, there is nothing sweet about goya–also known as bitter melon or bitter gourd, it resembles a very bumpy cucumber and is in the same family as pumpkins, squash and gourds. It is traditionally eaten in Japan, China, Vietnam, India and other South and Southeast Asian countries.

this is the Vietnamese variety of bitter gourd

this is the Vietnamese variety of bitter gourd

C. says that while he was in Okinawa (where goya is very popular) people said the reason Okinawans live so long is because they eat lots of pork and lots of goya! I can’t verify this, but it sounds reasonable enough, I suppose. One dish that is very popular there is goya champuru which is a stir-fried dish that features goya and often pork, eggs, onion or garlic and other seasonings.
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16.11.2009

Mmm… matcha shortbread cookies

In cookies and cake, matcha, Japanese green tea powder has to be my favorite flavour. Chocolate would be a close second, but because I’m a major chocolate fiend, I do prefer it on its own. I love matcha whisked with water for tea, and I also love it in baked goods. It is somewhat bitter (like cocoa) and is definitely strong-tasting, so pairs very well with sweet and creamy things, which mellow it out and counter the bitterness.

sifting the matcha into the flour

sifting the matcha into the flour

I. Love. These. Cookies.
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11.11.2009

Sencha-Uchiyama: another Japanese green tea!

This is the sencha that I have been drinking almost every day for the past few weeks. I found it in a health food store downtown in Montreal, near the McGill campus. It was on sale, so I thought I’d give it a try, instead of ordering Japanese tea online (as I often do). It is labeled ‘Sencha-Uchiyama’ by R. Uchiyama (who was born in Japan to tea-farming parents, and has a shop in Montreal which I cannot find!) and was grown in Kawane, Japan. It is a second harvest tea (which is why it wasn’t very expensive) and I bought it in an 100g tin, at $16 CDN for 100g.

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Don’t let the blah photo fool you, I’m really happy with this tea. However, the camera and I are having issues. The smell and taste of this sencha remind me of ‘Sencha Ashikubo’ which I have purchased a few times from Camellia Sinensis, a wonderful Montreal tea house/shop. The taste of the tea itself is basically that of a typical middle-of-the-road sencha–it is not too bitter, a bit sweet, and vegetal without being grassy. What makes it similar to ‘Sencha Ashikubo’ is that they both have a wonderful aroma of tropical fruit in their dry form. It’s worth buying this tea for the smell alone!
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30.10.2009

Sujeonggwa: Korean persimmon punch

Let’s continue on today’s Korean kick, shall we? This is something else that I first tried in Korea, and have never seen here in Canada until I tried making it yesterday. It is essentially a strong ginger and cinnamon tea, sweetened with sugar and then dried persimmons are put in, to be steeped for a day in the fridge before drinking. The dried persimmons swell up and become as soft (or softer) than fresh persimmons. The punch is topped off with a few pine nuts before serving.

necessary materials: cinnamon sticks, sliced ginger, dried persimmons

necessary materials: cinnamon sticks, sliced ginger, dried persimmons

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24.10.2009

Yerba mate: tea-ish and totally great

What to say about yerba mate? I’ve been drinking it on and off for years, and each time I return to it, I remember why I initially thought it was great. It has a strong taste if you aren’t used to it, mainly because of the amount of ‘tea’ that is used for each infusion–it’s a lot, much more than most people would use to brew a pot of camellia sinensis.

mate and bombilla

mate and bombilla


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22.10.2009

Matcha, mooncake & persimmon: afternoon tea

P1030858

Though I’m usually an early riser these days, I don’t usually eat breakfast until almost noontime. My morning fuel generally consists of dizzying amounts of tea–sencha, yerba mate, black and herbal teas–I drink them all. Since I tend to eat breakfast late, lunch is usually small or is sometimes more of a snack, naturally taken with tea. Besides books, my main indulgence is nice Japanese green teas, especially matcha, and it is a wonderful drink to have in the early afternoon with a sweet. Matcha is a pleasantly bright-green powdered tea that is whisked with water to produce a foamy and richly-flavourful drink that is very different from steeped teas. Good matcha tastes like nothing else; it is creamy and smooth tasting, and though it has a vegetal ‘green’ taste, it is much more complex than that. If you haven’t tried it, you should! If you like fine green teas, you’ll love it.
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15.09.2009

Turmeric. In curry, yes, but as tea?

there's a lot of turmeric in there

there's a lot of turmeric in there

Last night and this morning I made ginger tea laced with turmeric. I would like to say I am drinking it for its wonderful flavour, as I do with regular tea and my beloved sencha, but it is not really so–I’ve been trying it primarily for its purported health benefits. Though, I must say, it makes a very pleasant drink. The fresh ginger overwhelms the overall taste, though the turmeric is certainly responsible for the colour, as well as the earthy body of this tisane. (more…)